GOP voters will also decide on nonbinding resolutions

Published 6:00 pm, Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Texas Republicans will get to weigh in with their opinions on immigration, voter identification and government spending next week through nonbinding resolutions on Tuesday's primary ballot.

The State Republican Executive Committee picked the three items to send a message to elected leaders in Austin and Washington, D.C., said Hans Klingler, state GOP spokesman.

"The thought behind doing this is it's probably one of the truest ways in a large-scale statewide format, to gauge voter support and voter opposition," Klingler said. "I think these are definitely three items you will see in some shape or form in the 2009 (legislative) session."

The issues are top priorities for state Republicans, he said.

On immigration, Republicans can promote legislation to require federal, state, and local officials to enforce immigration laws. Some local law enforcement agencies have argued that enforcing immigration law will hamper their ability to investigate local crimes.

"It's a healthy nudge in a positive direction for federal officials to see what the thinking is," Klingler said. "This is an important issue and we want them to pay attention to it."

Debate over voter identification was contentious when the issue came up during last year's legislative session. Republicans would like state law to require people to provide photo identification to vote.

Republicans "happen to think this would be an incredibly important and quite frankly very simple safeguard to ensure that people who are voting are who they say they are," Klingler said.

Democrats argue that the requirement would place undue hardships on some voters, discouraging them from taking part in elections.

The third resolution on Republican primary ballots would encourage lawmakers to limit annual state budget increases to growth in population and inflation unless voter approval allows further spending growth or in the case of an official state emergency.

Controlling spending is "always a core tenet of the Republican philosophy," Klingler said. "We feel it is important to reinforce not only with Republican leaders but Democrats as well that taxpayers expect a level of service in Texas and elected leaders need to be well aware that that's our money we're spending."

Because the resolutions are nonbinding, they'll have no practical effect.

While Democrats have used nonbinding resolutions in the past, none will appear on those ballots this year.

In 2006, the Republican ballot had four referendums, including two similar to this year's voter ID and limited spending measures.